[hungryforcodes]

DO THIS. I have a friend that was doing a PhD and procrastinated and they kick him out after the ten year time limit. True they gave him an MA for his work, but still that was ten years of his life wasted stressing out about procrastinating about not doing his PhD, that could have been spent at the beach with a martini and a girl in a bikini.

[SamBam]

> that could have been spent at the beach

As a procrastinator myself, this is actually a self-poisoning attitude that I've worked on removing, in the spirit of being kind to myself. (Procrastination tends to get worse when you have self-hate spirals.)

It's so easy to look back on wasted hours and think "I could have been doing anything better than that." I use to have days at work where I didn't accomplish much, and say to myself "I'm a horrible father because I could have spent today with my kids."

It's true that procrastination eats away hours of our lives, but there's no reality where most of us would have been able to say "I know I'll procrastinate the next three days, I'll take a beach vacation with those hours instead, and then do the job promptly the next day."

This kind of (common) thinking is no better than any other kinds of regrets in life, staying awake and thinking "what if I had asked that person out in high school?" etc etc.

[hungryforcodes]

But YOUR thinking is a self poisoning attitude (jesting a little with you btw :), because it creates a sense of complacency. If we regret those moments -- and we should -- we will be all the more vigilant not to waste them in the future.

Regrets are THE most useful lessons our brain can give us. If I HAD asked the person out in hughschool maybe I'd be happy now and rich. Or whatever. Next time you meet a hot chick that you love -- you won't make the same mistake twice. Ask her out!

[jjgreen]

Heh, I met a chap doing a PhD in maths at a decent university in Northern England (no names), he was in his 8th year: He was funded for the first 3 years, managed to get another year of funding when that ended and subsequently lived off his parents. By year 6 they were a bit sick of this and stopped, so he had no money for rent so started to live in the department, working until late in the evening and then sleeping in a cupboard. He'd been doing that for 2 years when I met him. Perhaps he's still there ...

[ackbar03]

Wait, that's the alternative to doing a PhD??

[MaxPengwing]

The most common academic titles are:

Bachelors - Masters - Licentiat - Doctor

A Lic. is not use din the US, but very common in Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Licentiate_(degree)

And is basically what you can take out after half a Ph.D. program. In many technical schools in Sweden you are expected to do Lic. on the way to Ph.D. or if you burn out you at least have a Lic.

[TeMPOraL]

I think GP is asking about the M&B, not the MA.

[philsnow]

Licentiates certainly aren't commonly used in the States, but there are several programs that offer ecclesial licentiates like Licentiate of Sacred Theology or Licentiate of Canon Law, which are each required for work in certain areas even in the States.

[hungryforcodes]

In 30 years of academia in Canada -- I've never heard of this requirement....

[satvikchoudhary]

where do I signup

[hungryforcodes]

Beaches...bikinis...martinis.